Randall

I can feel way more with the InvisX and I have fished with both lines. InvisX has some stretch but can't be compared to stretch in regular mono. It's totaly different and I don't exactly know how to decribe it other than to tell you it has stretch but don't feel stretchy.

The largest bass I have caught took me three years to catch after knowing the exact spots it used to feed, how it feeds, where it spawns etc. Three times in three years I tried to catch it off a bed but never could get a boat close without the fish knowing I was there. I even tried to get behind a tree and catch it from the bank after crawling across the ground and that didn't work. Then one day with cloud cover, and a 40+ mph wind I ended up catching it. No doubt in my mind that fish learned not to hit baits and to be more careful when a boat was around. In my mind it took big waves and low light to keep me from being seen or heard and for my bait to be realistic as possible to catch that fish cause that fish had learned from it's experience. I think I would have caught it long before if it hadn't been educated from experience.

My guess is that maybe some of these fish got mouth injuries (rooting out crawfish in rocky areas, hook injuries etc.) somehow during a fast warming water period. Bloody tail injuries like you see on bass during the spawning season are rarely caused by nest building. It's just a myth we fishermen have created. With fish being cold blooded the capillaries carrying the blood often burst in the tail area from extra blood flow during periods of fast rising water temps like you typically have during the spawning season. So, It would be my guess that if there was an injury in the mouth area there could also be some bursting of capillaries in the injured area and is why you see this in the March- July time frame as the water warms. Just a guess on my part with a little bit of fish science thrown in. But really I have no idea other than the tail thing being true.

if you want to look at big lakes with lots of fish in the 8-10 pound range then the ones in California, Texas, and maybe one or two in Florida are the only ones to really consider on the list. Lakes like Guntersville, Santee Cooper etc. which are farther north are best for numbers of fish in the five and six pound range but really produce very few fish over seven pounds when compared to places like the big lakes in Texas and California. I am guessing what you end up talking about here tournament wise is a lake that will usually produce a few thirty to forty pound five fish limits on occasion but usually takes upper twentys to win on a good day. Now if you are looking for only one big fish and not a five fish limit then that could really change things as well.

I guess I don't live far enough South. In GA it was 12 degrees at my house yesterday morning and 10 degrees today. A shallow pond down the street is completely covered in ice. But, it won't be long until it warms up here and things get back to normal. Usually by Feburary we are starting to warm up and wearing the fish out.

My guess that none of the big lakes in the US are the real top five just a lot of small localy known small lakes around the Southern US called I Am Not Telling.

What about the 17 pounders? haha When I catch one I will let you know. Right now I can only tell you what the fish up to 16lbs prefered. But, I am really wanting to skip over all those teen fish and just go straight to 23 lbs.

It's going to be real cold. Could be single digits (less than 10 degrees ) in the morning. Best option would be to stay home. With the fast dropping water temps though the clearest water you can find deepwater and spoons would be the way to go.

There will probably be some tank seminars /demonstrations at the Atlanta Boat Show here in Atlanta this week . http://www.atlantaboatshow.com/ I will be doing a seminar/class on how to catch trophy bass during the spawn. Most likely I will be doing this the first weekend in March at a location west of Atlanta. I am working out the final details in the next couple of days and will post it here when I get the time and place set.

For bass 6lbs-16lbs the Mattlures baits are the perfect size. The baits larger than those will sometimes get bit but way less often even from big fish. I shortened the tail on my Tru-Tungsten Bluegill and caught way more big fish once I took about an inch off the tail.

There are lots of FloridaXNorthern Strain bass in Ga. I would almost say most of the fish in South GA are FlordiaXNorthern. So most likely the Perry fish was. I don't see how you could make the Perry bass/climate change claim at all unless there was real strong evidence of a big change during the years of the life of the bass. I would guess it would be just the opposite since we have so much global warming now. :

Yep. Bad info on my part. Ben, Troy would be a great choice also.

Many of my clients have also used Tim Chandler and Troy Jens for trips to Guntersville. Troy, last I heard, was getting out of guiding and has a new job working with kids. Just from the good stories I have heard from my clients about trips with Tim on Guntersville he would be my choice if I was going to hire a guide. http://www.mildrillafishing.com/

Georgia now has a SAL type program planned for the future. I am 100% against it. It will be a big waste of taxpayers money. Georgia already has bass with the genes to grow to world record size. The problem here is not genes but that the fish are harvested before they can get to that size and our lakes are not managed to produce big bass. Our lakes have some 29-32 inch bass. The problem here is we starve them by using tons of hybrids and stripers to control and destroy the bait fish populations where giant fish is most likely to be. Also illegal spotted bass stockings all over the state have almost wiped out LM bass populations in the parts of most public lakes with the most promise of producing giant fish. I believe it is possible for Georgia to produce both a WR spotted bass and a WR largemouth but it will take a lot of luck since we are down to very very few lakes left with the potential since Stripers, hybrids and spots are in almost all of our lakes now.

This may sound a little crazy but here is how I got the perfect swimbait rod for $20. I was at BPS looking through a bunch of discount rods that were $20 each. Well I saw what looked to be a rod rated for up to three ounce baits that was 8 1/2 feet long but had the Dobyns ML series type handle with the foam. It was a medium action and after picking it up I thought this is a great rod for throwing the tiny new shad swimbaits. It was a Walleye trolling rod but it was perfect for throwing those small swimbaits a mile so I bought it for $20. Took it home and started looking at the rod and was wishing I could get one like it for throwing big swimbaits. Looked on the BPS site and found out it was under $70 regular price but they didn't make a model for baits over three ounces. Started looking again at the rod and realized it was 8 1/2 feet long and if I cut off a little it would be perfect for larger baits and the length I need for big baits. I am guessing it is about 7' 10" after the Dremel tool and I went to work and works great for all of my swimbait needs up to 8" Hudd Size. I am selling all my expensive swimbait rods and getting some more of these to replace them. ;D http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_74425_100002005_100000000_100002000_100-2-5?ordProd=Y&CMID=TOP_selectitems#itemDetail The one I have is at the bottom of the list.

I am looking for information on bass fishing at Lake Robinson. We are looking to put together a Southeast Jonboat Championship for clubs who use electric motors in the Southeast and this lake is being looked at as a possible site for the tournament. Any info on type and size of fish and results from any tournaments there in the past would be helpful. If anybody wants to let me in on any good spots,techniques, etc just send me a PM since I might fish there sometime soon.

Muddy, I think I have one somewhere. I will look around for it.

Get a slammer and a Mattlures.

This would be my guess too. However it is very possible these are the same fish. Likely the fish you caught "on bottom" swam down to intercept your jig. If the bass needed to use the water column over short a period of time they could do it by accommodating to the mid range depth, and move up or down to feed (but not hold for any duration). Just a thought. Just to add, Pauls example almost never happens ever. I used to say it was impossible. But, Ralph told me if I said that some crazy freak bass would do it. It is possible but highly unlikely. So, I changed my terminology. ;D If a fish moves down within the first couple of feet the swimbladder will begin to compress as the fish moves farther down the bladder will compress to the point that the fish loses it's buoyancy and sinks. The fish must then constantly swim to stay up. It's much harder for a fish to swim down more than few feet to feed than it is to make a quick burst up and then back down. Deeper fish would have a greater range to move down ( Like when Ryan Coleman won the Lanier Tournament in the example above) but shallow fish up near the surface are more limited unless they want to sink to the bottom or swim constantly until they are acclimated to that depth. The other thing about the swim bladder is it is connected to the equilibrium of the fish which is a whole different topic but another reason fish like to stay at one depth. I have spent hours and hours watching suspended fish near the surface in clear water and I have never seen one go down more than just a few feet. Even then they almost always come back up. I have even seen big female fish suspended high over deeper spawning beds and they will almost never go to the bottom to chase or pick up a lure on the bed. They go nose down up above the bed and look like they are standing on their head but you have to catch them up above the bed where they are at. It just don't happen much in shallow water or fish suspended shallow that a fish swims down.

I have had big bass at the 25-30 foot mark that had to be weighted to get back down while I have heard stories of guys getting them in forty to fifty feet and they were fine. I am not sure why but most big fish I catch on the small lakes I fish have swollen bladders from around thirty feet but sometimes at twenty five. This is sometimes also the max depth in the lake if that has anything to do with it.

Just to be sure I wasn't misleading anybody, I asked Ralph Manns how fast a bass could adjust to depth change since he has studied this subject way more than I have. Here is his reply to me. Quote: Unless there has been some recent scientific study with which I am not familiar, (I'm now pretty much out of the loop for current science reports) we only have data on a few other species. Black bass capabilities are likely similar, but not necesarily the same. As I recall, yellow perch are able to compensate for about a foot of pressure change per hour. Within an hour for ever foot of base-depth change they will be adjusted to the new depth. I don't consider this fast enough to significantly allow rapid changes in acclimation depth. Likely, the other site author was merely noting that bass can quickly go up as much as 20 feet to the surface. but, such moves are almost always accompanied by an almost immediate return to a depth with significantly higher pressure. LTBama has images of bass coming up from 25 feet following fish hooked while vertical spooning. The followers turn back at 10-7 feet from the surface. while the percentage change in pressure per foot lessens as you go deeper, 20 feet appears to be about the maximum range of normal vertical movement for the black basses. More realistic info is that during the one year I dove and observed bass, they seldom changed base-depth by more than a foot or two, staying in the same depth range for months at a time. this was in lake Travis, and we saw fish at all depths from just under the surface to 40 feet down. Individual fish tended to stay at their own depths, but all depths seemed to hold some bass. End Quote. Raul, does this sound like the kind of depth change you would consider extremely fast? I don't consider a foot per hour fast but you might since it all relative to what we consider fast. Fourbizz I have seen at the most 15 feet moves up where I fish for LM and 20-25 feet for spots and hybrids but Ryan Coleman who fishes much clearer water than I do most of the time told me he had a 10lb LM come up and chase his jig to the surface in 30 feet of water and he saw it all on his depthfinder. But those fish return back down quickly as Ralph stated.

From my own observation in clear water and from what I have read and at times discussed with biologists who have studied this more than I have two to three feet is not a big problem and is the common shallow water limit. The gas bladder though does cause the fish to suspend at rest at one depth where a balance is reached. If the fish moves up three feet and no adjustment to the bladder is made then the fish will slowly settle back to where it was. If the fish is active and moving around two to three feet depth change is not a big deal and the fish can feed there. Also deeper fish seem to be able to make a larger move up or down than shallow fish and the deeper the fish is the larger a move they can make. Ryan Coleman, won a major pro tournament on Lanier a couple years ago, got deep suspended bass he could see on his graph during the tournament to follow his dropshot down in depth around ten feet, from what I remember, in something like 40 feet of water to the bottom before they would strike it. Also larger older bass are more sensitive to depth change. The bladder of an older bass has expanded and contracted so many times over its life that it becomes stretched out much like the bladder in older humans. This was one of my theorys as to why big bass are more sensitive to depth pressure changes then I read something Ralph Manns wrote which kind of confirmed for me there is something to it. This could make it more sensitive to changes in pressure and one reason why larger bass don't make the larger moves up and down that smaller bass will make. Also smallmouth and spots will make a larger move up or down than a largemouth will and from what I have read they have thicker air bladder and body cavity walls. Something else that I have found interesting is that bass have a way to completely deflate the bladder and move all the way to the bottom. Many divers have documented bass sitting sideways on the bottom after severe cold fronts. A bass can susposedly swim down until the pressure causes the bladder to deflate and it then goes all the way to the bottom no longer being limited by its inflated bladder but stuck on the bottom at rest.

Here is my take on the US Reels. I had told Roadwarrior that my US Reel at the time was a great reel but I had not had time to put it to the test really. At that time I was landing big largemouth on them, loved the drag and wide spool and had no issues with the reel. Over time the reel started having durability issues with plastic parts breaking and the gears stripping. To be fair I am tough on spinning reels and don't know anybody who is tougher on spinning reels fishing for bass than I am. But, I expected way more from the reel for the price. It also had an issue with the bail spring having a pinch point where the line would get caught up and damaged and that drove me nuts. In looking at the new reels in the Pro series the part that caused the pinch point seems to be gone from the reel and the reel has been redesigned. Maybe they have made the necessary changes and the new reel is better. I have been using the BPS wide spool reels and although they are great reels the drag system doesn't seem to be near as good as the US Reel that I had before. I would give the new reel a chance but would look it over very carefuly before buying it. I don't know the price of the new Pro Series either. It could end up being way over priced for what you are getting. I feel the first models were way over priced for what I got out of the reel in the end. I dont know about the baitcaster. Would be interesting to try just to see how it works with that design.

I am going to say this is wrong and one of the largest myths in bass fishing. It could be true at times but it is not true all the time. I haven't seen the show so I can't judge what was on the show but I disagree with what you just said the way I understood it. Bass are most active where the most activity is taking place whether that is on the bottom, at the surface, or in between. I have heard things like this before from very experienced fishermen and many of the ones on TV. It still surprises me how many fishermen think this way. This theory usually comes from the myth that bass move up or shallower in the water to feed and then move back down deeper and become inactive. The fact that bass have a swim bladder which limits the depths they can hold and feed at and the fact that big changes in depth take days not minutes or hours make this impossible for the bass. On some lakes bass make may quick upward bursts as much as fifteen feet to take bait near the surface but they must return back to the holding depth when finished feeding. Spots and smallmouth have a greater verticle range than largemouths. Now bait fish like shad have no swimbladder and can make big moves up and down in the water but must constantly swim to stay up in the water. Just for an example here is how shad could influence the activity level of bass. Early and late shad are often shallow and scatter out more since they school by sight. This is when they are easy targets and the shallow bass near the surface and in the shallows feed heavily on them. As the sun gets up the shad begin to school tighter and move down in the water. As the shad move down bass that are holding a little deeper may become active and feed on them but the shallow fish can't follow the shad down since they would have to swim against the floatation of the swim bladder. So now the shallow bass may be more inactive in the shallows or move out to deeper water to suspend near the surface until they move shallow again. At midday or in the early afternoon the shad may be right on the bottom in deep water. This could cause the fish just off the bottom to become active and be the most active fish. The middepth fish can't follow the shad down so now they may be suspended inactive over deeper water but still unable to go to the bottom to feed on the shad located at the bottom. This is just an example but a common one that happens on many lakes. It would be much more accurate to say that where the bait is located is a strong indicator of the activity level of bass at that depth. But it's much more complicated than that since conditions, forage, etc. vary from lake to lake and I could write a book on it and may still miss something different that happens on another lake.

Thats a very good article and one of the things most people don't think about when fishing. When I do swimbait/big bass seminars about half of my seminar is based on the strike zones of big bass and how to put your bait in it properly to get bit. Also, the bigger the bass the more important the strike zone becomes. Small fish have smaller bodies so their body weight can often be maintained with larger strike zones. A big bass needs to be more efficent to maintain body weight so it's strike zone is often smaller than that of a smaller fish in the same area. Things like type and size of prey species, structure the fish is using, water clarity, water depth, species of bass, age and size of bass, water temp, etc. all have a big effect on the strike zone.